


kissing you and the salt air

by notthebigspoon



Series: welcome to the new age [4]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 20:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthebigspoon/pseuds/notthebigspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javi is a professional. He might have a thing with Bryce Harper, but when it comes down to it between their teams, he does the job that he is paid to do and tries to do it well. Bryce is no longer his baby boy, he’s an opponent and Javi’s going to see to it that he loses. He’s proud that that’s not a lesson that Bryce has to learn. He’s always focused when it comes to baseball. Hot headed, but focused.</p><p>Title taken from Sunny and 75 by Joe Nichols.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kissing you and the salt air

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt on Tumblr: "Baseball prompt: After Bryce Harper has an asthma attack, Javier looks after him to make sure he's okay."
> 
> Thanks for the prompt anon!

Javi is a professional. He might have a thing with Bryce Harper, but when it comes down to it between their teams, he does the job that he is paid to do and tries to do it well. Bryce is no longer his baby boy, he’s an opponent and Javi’s going to see to it that he loses. He’s proud that that’s not a lesson that Bryce has to learn. He’s always focused when it comes to baseball. Hot headed, but focused.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t slip glances at the visiting dugout, smiling a little whenever he sees that blonde head bobbing along or those blue eyes looking right at him. When either of them is on the field, though, they’re all business. There’s no sweet smile, no eyes promising what comes later. Just Javi staring Bryce down and Bryce focusing on nothing but connecting to the ball. There’s something off, though. Something Javi doesn’t like.

Bryce is looking at Javi but while it looks like he’s focusing on the ball, it’s as if he’s looking _through_ Javi. One hand goes to his chest for a split second. Swing and a miss. Swing and a miss. And then Bryce hits his knees, panting and wheezing, clawing at his chest. Javi _knows_ he should stay on the mound but he can’t. He throws his glove aside, jogs to the plate and crouches down next to Bryce, gripping his shoulder.

Those big blue eyes are filled with tears when Bryce looks up at him. The younger man pulls away from the Nationals’s trainer, leans into Javi’s chest and clutches at his chest as he struggles to take in air. Javi makes himself remain calm for Bryce’s sake, though he’s angry and wants to rage at the lost look on everyone else’s faces. They should know what to do. They should know where Bryce’s emergency inhaler is, instead of Javi having to tell them it’s in his warmup jacket.

He snatches the inhaler from Johnson’s hand, shoots the manager a black look before shaking the inhaler and pressing it to Bryce’s lips, coaxing the younger man to breathe. Bryce is quaking in Javi’s arms but he’s also struggling to obey. He’s turned into such a good boy like that, so eager to please and obey. Javi whispers that into Bryce’s ear.

“That’s it. That’s Daddy’s good boy…" Javi murmurs, smiling at the way Bryce looks up at him in shock and pure joy. “One more, okay?” One more, that’s a good boy. Breathe for me.”

Bryce obeys, sucking in another lungful of the grainy medicine, slowly loosening up and settling against Javi, nodding and rasping out to the trainer and his manager that he thinks he’s okay. He’s done for the night, there’s no question about that. Javi stands first, gently pulling Bryce to his feet and walking him to the steps of the visiting dugout with a hand firmly pressed into the small of his back.

He doesn't want to leave Bryce to go down those steps with someone else but with the crisis past, it’s time to work again. He steadfastly avoids Posey’s eyes, picks up his glove and dusts it off, pulls it back on. He catches the ball when it’s thrown back out to him. He’s not daddy right now, not a lover. He’s a Giant and his job is to strike this guy out and he does it in one, two, three. He does the same to the next guy before he’s pulled.

A handful of the bullpen guys tease him, tell him he must have shocked the Nationals into the strikes and since when is he so buddy, buddy with those guys anyway? Zito takes it one step further, asks if he just likes cozying up with the pretty ones. Javi scowls at him, tugs his hoodie over his head and huddles into a corner of the dugout. He’s given a wide berth and for that he’s thankful, because he’s not really sure exactly what he just did either.

Today, from the moment he spotted Bryce during the warm ups, something has been outside of his realm of normal. He doesn’t know just when he started holding Bryce so dear. He’s certainly never indicated to Bryce after the time the boy awkwardly and abruptly told Javi that he loved Javi, that this was anything more than a sexual arrangement. It was merely a mutual satisfaction of needs. Javi had said that once and spent the next month trying to forget the heartbroken but resigned look in Bryce’s eyes.

He considers the fact. They talk every day and Javi is miserable if they don’t, absolutely miserable. He looks up Bryce’s stats and highlights every night, calls to tell Bryce he’s proud the only way he knows how - by gently talking his boy through safe ways to give himself the hurt that he needs. In his own mind, he thinks of Bryce as his baby boy, he’s even said called Bryce such more than once. When his teammates ask where he’s been or who he’s talking to, he answers ‘the boyfriend’ without any hesitation. He’s never been shy about his sexuality, never been ashamed of it, though he’s not sure if they take him seriously.

He doesn’t understand why he can’t tell Bryce what they are. Because even he can say, only to himself, that Bryce is so much more than just satisfying a need. Bryce needs Javi. And Javi needs Bryce as well. So much more than he ever realized. He’s not a coward. He can tell Bryce. He will, tonight, tell him that this, what they have, it’s more than what Javi has been calling it.

It seems like it takes forever to get out of the clubhouse. People keep pushing microphones and recorders in his face, asking just what that situation was that they witnessed. He shrugs it off, tries to tell them that when a friend is hurting, he reacts, but that’s so inadequate that it’s ridiculous. Since when, people wonder, is he friends with Bryce Harper? And when has he _ever_ cradled and basically cuddled a friend in front of tens of thousands of people? The moment their attention averts elsewhere, he slips away. He has to go find Bryce.

The intent is to drop his things off at home and then go to the Nationals’s hotel. But he doesn’t have to because there’s Bryce sitting on Javi’s doorstep and looking as happy as a clam. Pale in the moonlight and so damn beautiful. He bounds to his feet and crashes into Javi’s chest, kissing him hard, hungry and happy. Javi makes a muffled noise of surprise against his lips, gripping his waist.

“You love me.” Bryce says breathlessly, giggling his way through another kiss. “You _love_ me.”

“How could you tell?” Javi asks, wondering how and so happy that they both realized it before it was too late.

“You… the way you looked at me, touched me, in front of all those people. You… you looked at me like I feel about you.”

That shouldn’t make any sense at all and yet it does, it explains everything more perfectly than anything Javier could ever come up with. He doesn’t look for words now, runs his hand over Bryce’s cheek and pulls him in for a long kiss before resting their foreheads together. It’s not like he’s never noticed before that Bryce is beautiful but he’s never seen him look quite so beautiful as he does now. Javi… he doesn’t want to mark that.

“Please tell me you don’t want a beating tonight.” Javi mumbles, sliding a hand under the back of Bryce’s shirt.

“No…” Bryce says, smiling brightly. “I want ice cream.”

“... what?”

“The man I love loves me back and I want to celebrate. Ice cream.”

“You’re a toddler.”

“But you loooove me.” Bryce giggles, leaning up on his toes and kissing Javi again. “Ice cream. And maybe a spanking later? Please?”

Javi sighs, but he’s smiling when his winds his fingers through Bryce’s and leads him down to the truck. “Anything you want baby boy. Anything at all.”


End file.
